Amazon primed to go behind the scenes at Manchester City

English soccer's Manchester City have finalised an agreement for Amazon, the e-commerce giant with a growing appetite for sports content, to film a season-long, behind-the-scenes documentary.

The deal is reported to be worth at least £10 million ($13.10) to the club, which presently sits eight points clear at the top of the Premier League.

The series will launch exclusively on Amazon Prime Video, the subscription service, in 2018 and will be available globally. Last month, Italian giants Juventus announced a similar tie-up with Amazon rival Netflix.

Heather Schuster, head of unscripted, Amazon Originals, said today: “This new Amazon Prime Original series will give Prime members extraordinary insight into Manchester City, the top English Premier League Football team and one of the most exciting and respected teams globally. The story behind the coaches and players is fascinating and we are very excited to work with the Manchester City team to deliver an exclusive all access experience to our Prime members.”

Ferran Soriano, chief executive of Manchester City, added: “Amazon Prime Video is the perfect home for a ground-breaking project that will offer a unique and authentic inside view into Manchester City’s season like never before. This is an extremely exciting time for Manchester City and through Amazon’s world-class service, we will be able to share it with football fans all over the world.”

In USA, Amazon has already won acclaim for its two series of 'All or Nothing,' the season-long documentaries covering NFL American football's Arizona Cardinals and Los Angeles Rams, while it is presently making an eight-part documentary on a season with the All Blacks, the New Zealand rugby union national team, and current world champions.

This autumn it has also begun streaming live sport, with a contract to show 10 Thursday night NFL matches and the ATP Next Gen Finals, the new season-ending tournament for players aged 21 and under taking place in Milan at present.

Meanwhile, Manchester City have posted record revenues of £473.4 million for the financial year ended 30 June, 2017, up 21 per cent on the prior year. It is the first time the club's revenues have exceeded £400 million.

Profits fell from £20.5 million to just £1.1 million, which the club put down to the fact that these accounts covered a 13-month period rather than the usual 12 months (a one-off to synchronise the club with City Football Group's other entities), but is thought more likely to be attributable to a significant rise in the wage bill from £197.6 million to £264.1 million.